Theatre of the 20th century and beyond

The achievements of realism at the end of the 19th century continued to resonate through the
turn of the 21st century, but the most influential innovations in early 20th-century theatre
came from a vigorous reaction against realism. Just as the visual arts exploded into a chaos of
experiment and revolt, generating numerous styles and isms, so the theatre seized upon a
variety of sources to express the contradictions of the new age. Inspiration was sought in
machines and technology, Asian theatre, Symbolism, nihilism, the psychoanalysis of
Sigmund Freud, and the shock of a world war that spawned widespread disillusionment and
alienation. The results of this eclecticism were often anarchic and exhilarating: designers and
directors were as influential as playwrights, though relatively little drama of lasting value was
produced. Nevertheless, such experiments set the tone and widened the theatrical vocabulary
for all the innovations that followed.
The beginnings of the revolt against realism were already hinted at before the 19th century
was over, sometimes in the works of the realist writers themselves. Ibsen, for example, turned
increasingly toward Symbolism in his later plays such as Bygmester Solness (1892; The
Master Builder) and Naar vi dde vaagner (1899; When We Dead Awaken). Frank
Wedekinds Frhlings Erwachen (1891; Spring Awakening) began its study of adolescent
love in the slice-of-life naturalistic mode and ended in the realm of ghosts and dreams,
foreshadowing Expressionism, which was to preoccupy other German dramatists during the
1920s. Strindberg also is regarded as one of the fathers of Expressionism by virtue of his later
works such as Ett drmspel (1902; A Dream Play) and Spksonaten (1907; The Spook
[Ghost] Sonata). In France the marionette play Ubu roi (King Ubu), written in 1888 by
Alfred Jarry at age 15, created a scandal when it was later performed with live actors in 1896.
Its anarchic use of puppet techniques, masks, placards, and stylized scenery was to be taken
up decades later in French avant-garde theatre.

After realism
The new stagecraft
Since naturalistic scenery had led to an excessive clutter of archaeologically authentic detail
on stage, the reaction against it favoured simplicity, even austerity, but with a heightened
expressiveness that could convey the true spirit of a play rather than provide merely
superficial dressing. One of the first advocates of this view was the Swiss designer Adolphe
Appia, who used the latest technology and exploited the possibilities of electric lighting to
suggest a completely new direction in stage design. Appia believed that the setting should
serve to focus attention on the actor, not drown him in two-dimensional pictorial detail. He
believed that the imaginative use of light on a few well-chosen formssimple platforms,
flights of steps, and the likewas sufficient to convey the changing mood of a play.
Because his views were so radical, Appia had few opportunities to realize his theories. They
were, however, carried forward at the beginning of the century by the English designer and
director Edward Gordon Craig, who used strong lighting effects on more abstract forms. He
felt that a suggestion of reality could create in the imagination of the audience a physical
reality: a single Gothic pillar, for instance, designed to stand alone and carefully lit, can
suggest a church more effectively than a paint-and-canvas replica faithful to the last detail.

But, like Appia, Craig became better known as a theorist than a practitioner. In his book The
Art of the Theatre (1905) he outlined his concept of a total theatre in which the stage
director alone would be responsible for harmonizing every aspect of the productionacting,
music, colour, movement, design, makeup, and lightingso that it might achieve its most
unified effect. More controversial were Craigs ideas on the depersonalization of the actor
into what he called the bermarionette (super-marionette), based on a new symbolic form
of movement and gesture (not unlike that of the Asian actor) in which the actors ego would
not obtrude on the productions aesthetic concept. While they may not have found a practical
way of achieving their visions, both Appia and Craig exerted an enormous influence on the
next generation of directors and stage designers, particularly in their principle of painting
with light.
The Austrian director Max Reinhardt came close to achieving many of Craigs ideals,
especially in the power he exerted over every aspect of theatrical production. Beginning as an
actor in Otto Brahms company at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, Reinhardt won acclaim
for his inventive staging of Shakespeares Midsummer Nights Dream in 1905 and thereafter
devoted himself entirely to directing: he dominated the theatre of central Europe for 25 years.
His flair for bold theatricality made him many enemies among the realists, but it also returned
a sense of colour and richness to the theatre of the time. Reinhardt was pragmatic in his
approach to acting: rejecting the idea of one style, he demanded for modern plays a style
that was realistic in feeling but that avoided the drab exactness of realism. In productions of
the classics, he demanded lively, supple speaking in place of the slow, ponderous delivery of
the traditionalists. He always made his actors think afresh about their characters instead of
assuming ready-made characterizations.
In his endeavours to break down the separation of stage and auditorium, Reinhardt often took
his actors out of the theatre to play in unconventional settings. He produced Sophocles
Oedipus Rex in a circus arena in Berlin, and for his production of Karl Gustav Vollmllers
Mirakel (performed in 1911 and published in 1912; The Miracle), he transformed the huge
Olympia exhibition hall in London into a cathedral with the audience as part of the
congregation. In 1920 he helped to found the Salzburg Festival and directed Hugo von
Hofmannsthals morality play Jedermann (1911; Everyman) in the cathedral square. Although
he was a master of spectacle, his versatility was such that he directed subtle and intimate
plays in small theatres with equal skill.